Goodnight John

I was nearly 5 when it happened. It was my first experience with the idea of violent death. Murder. Murder of a hero of mine. A man who sang about peace and marmalade skies. A man who wrote a song about all the beautiful things he imagined for us, a man who led up a band that changed the face of music. A man with a little boy my age.

He never stopped being a key hero for me. I'm sorry he's gone.

Dead Or Alive

Imagine the sweetest boy you knew in adolescence.
Imagine that boy was like family to you. Not the kind of family you're forced to see, but the kind that's there supporting you when things get tough, the kind that you can trust with anything. Chosen family.
Imagine nights spent as frightened kids with parents who seemed again to be teetering on the brink of something terrifying. Imagine lying with that friend in bed, holding him, or he holding you, just for comfort.
Imagine you could trust this friend to never, ever try to betray the trust of that comfort. Imagine your relationship, intense but platonic.

Imagine around seventeen years old, a kiss. Imagine how confusing that kiss is. Imagine the thrill of knowing you already love each other and the fear of knowing that friendships were often ruined by the introduction of a sexual element. Imagine that by the time you decide to take the chance, this sweet boy, your most trusted friend, has picked up, without warning and moved across the country. Imagine he claimed it was because "there's nothing for me here".

Imagine beautiful letters describing the play of the sunlight over the ocean, whale watching during another perfect sunrise. Imagine a deep longing to see him again. Imagine giving up that dream as an impossibility.

Imagine how thrilled you are when he announces he's back. Distressed to hear that he left BC because "There's nothing left for me there anymore", but still, pleased to have him back, determined to show him that there are people here who love him and care about him and are here for him.

Imagine inviting him to your wedding and watching with amusement as he dances around the dance floor, waving the garter he caught over his head. Imagine wondering why he looks so haggard and ragged. Worrying, cuz he really kinda looks like shit.

Imagine how dissapointed you are, a year later, when he stands you up for the third time in a row.

A mutual friend from ages gone by informs you he's gay. You're blown away. A more reputable source informs you, less than a year later, that he's a crackhead. Tears well up in your eyes and threaten to spill down your cheeks but you hold it in. It's the first time you've seen this other friend in nine years and the first time you've met his wife and you're determined to have a nice day.

One drizzly morning a young, articulate panhandler approaches you, asking for change. You refuse, barely looking up, but something in his face catches your attention as he walks away. Another morning he approaches again and you try to get a good look at the face, but his eyes are downcast and he hurries off when you demonstrate your lack of change.

A friend of mine told me recently that the only reason we recognize friends who had faded into the deepest recesses of our memories is that they recognize us. It's that moment of mutual recognition that brings them to the forefront of your mind again.

Is it him? I've seen him a few times since. I've dug up old photos, wedding photos, to catch a glimpse of what his face truly looked like eight years ago. We made eye contact last weekend. The eyes were wrong. All wrong. My friend's eyes were bright and vivid. Lively. This man's eyes are sunken and dull. Then again, crack'll do that to you, now won't it?

He doesn't fit my stereotypical crackhead model, so I find myself in denial. THIS person is articulate and generally clean. THIS person has a clear sense of self awareness.

I know I should resign myself to the thought that my friend is dead. This is not the boy I used to sleep beside. I know that the last thing my life needs right now is for me to strike up a new friendship with an apparently homeless drug addict. Desperate people are dangerous. I know that I can't save him and I probably can't even help him. I know that trying is just setting myself up for heartbreak.

I know that I love that boy Steven as much as I ever did.
I know that the girl I used to be would be ashamed of me if I ever turned my back on him.

What I don't know, is what I'm going to do next, and that's a bit disorienting.

Young Love

If you had been a fly on the wall in Hubris' kitchen the other night, you would have overheard me say, at one point: "Apparently I was dumb and inexperienced when I was 18...go figure" in reference to the age at which I embarked on what was an 11 year relationship.

I got married in June of '97 when I was 21 years old, a few weeks before my husband-to-be turned 23. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I was filled with youthful idealism, a surety that love would find us a way through the issues that haunted our relationship. After all, I had always been "old for my age". I'd been looking after myself since I was eight. I knew the "appropriate" languages of disagreement. "When you focus on my flaws, I feel hurt". "When you assert that your way is the only way to do things, I feel frustrated and unappreciated". I was saying my piece, he was listening respectfully. We had things all figured out.

The minister who married us agreed to do so only if we took a pre-marriage counselling course with her. We learned, again, about respectful communication, we filled out questionairres independantly, to be sent off to a central marking facility which would gage our long term compatibility. We passed with flying colours. She came back to us in surprise and expressed a surety that, despite our age, we DID know what we were doing. We clearly were made for each other.

We were smug in our compatibility.

Thing is, we neglected to recognize that some of these recurring issues that haunted our relationship were simply too big to continue to hurdle, day in and day out, through housekeeping and child rearing. We didn't have a crystal ball into which we could peer and discover that the narrow channels of difference between our viewpoints would grow into huge gulfs as we matured and we didn't have the experience to know that that isn't unusual.

Codependancy seemed like a nonsense word. Something you were SUPPOSED to have in a relationship.

He didn't know that owning lots of expensive stuff would never be important to me, I didn't know that he would feel threatened by new friends I found from outside our existing high school social circle.

We fought, early on about a lot of the things that broke us up in the end. He would insist on "taking care" of me. His goal was to arrange it so I didn't "have to work". I would tell him that my independance was important to me and I didn't want to be taken care of. That never seemed to quite sink in, and when we started having children and I did stop working, part of him danced, the victor. Soon, he began to fill the role he'd wanted all along. The patriarch. I didn't have one growing up, and I certainly didn't want one now.

I responded the only way I had any experience with: the petulant child. Defiant, challenging. Resentment built. The more control he tried to seize, the more I resisted. The final year or two were ugly on the inside, while remaining quite cordial on the outside. Passive aggression, cutting remarks and physical control became staples of my life.

Still, I smiled. I grinned and bore it because, that's what I'd agreed to. After all, these were the same issues we'd always had. This WAS the man I'd married.

Our marriage vows included a bit about never putting one another down to outside parties. It was finding out that he'd been doing that that provided my out. Not the put-downs, not the constant reminders of my shortcomings, not the combined one-two punch of ignoring me for days on end, as I trailed after him like a lonely puppy dog then turning around and accusing me of not paying attention to him, not loving him, not being attracted to him when I finally gave up and pursued an activity of my own, but the breaking of that wedding vow, written by an inexperienced 22 year old boy-in-love.

Odd how the mind works.

Shrink My Kid

I have a really high needs kid. Allow me to describe high needs, for those who don't really understand the distinction between a "typical" kid (who still has much higher needs than, we hope, an adult) and the kid I wound up with.

He virtually shot out of my body, violently, causing a far greater level of damage than is typical even for a first child. He latched on within minutes and began nursing voraciously. He would practically drown himself in milk, he sucked so hard, leaving me with blisters and him with milk coming out his nose. His digestive system was underdeveloped. That meant he threw up constantly. Projectile vomiting after every feeding. After which he desperately wanted soothing. Nursing is soothing. See the cycle?

"Let him cry...don't overfeed him" some of the "experts" told me. "If he's vomiting, he needs more nutrition, plus the milk will neutralize the stomach acid and prevent damage to his esophogus" others said. Most of them, when I brought them my baby, who screamed 20 hours a day, between nursing and vomiting as if he was possessed by a greater demon (not shitting you, 6 inches when he was lying on his back), simply said: "This is your first right? Babies spit up. It's to be expected."

So here I have an infant who vomits constantly, sleeps a grand total of 4 hours out of every 24 and who I have to nurse every 20 minutes or so. Yeah, we both smelled of baby puke. Despite the fact that he was bathed twice a day and I showered regularly.

It doesn't end there though. At 5 months old he said his first word: "book" imagine how proud. (damned if we can shut him up, now). At 7 months old he displayed a fierce temper and several other hallmarks of Autism.

This temper didn't really abate. When he lost it, he LOST IT. I have suffered many a black eye, split lip, bloody nose or bump on the forehead from his early temper tantrums. Nothing the "experts" had to say worked, even a little. Most attempts to distract or "trick" him resulted in a redoubling of tantrum.

He was terrified ofanything automatic. The doors at a grocery store, elevators and escalators, riding in a car, the baby swing. It all reduced him to panicked cries consistantly until he was nearly 6 years old.

Water was horrifying to him. Strange adults terrible, strange kids even worse. Groups of people would have him running and hiding in genuine fear.

"He watches too much TV" The experts said, despite me exhausted repetitions of the fact that he didn't watch any TV. "Children that small have to eat very specific diets...it's pesticides/processed foods/sugars/dairy" other experts said, despite the fact that breastmilk was the only dairy he consumed up to three years old and all his food was organic, unprocessed and homemade. If it was sweet, it was because I mixed in bananas or applesauce. His birthday cakes were sugarfree banana bread and homemade organic frozen yogurt.

Today he exhibits far fewer symptoms of autism than 2 years ago, but it's been a long, hard road to get here. He's still got a temper on him, but he knows better than any kid his age I meet how to keep it in check, and I have to say, when he DOES lose it these days, while he still loses it completely, I can hardly blame him for losing it in the first place. We deal with the ACTIONS he takes when he's angry, rather than the anger itself. It seems to be working well.

His teacher tells me he's cooperative and helpful. Damn, I think I must be sending her the wrong kid or something. But dammit I'm proud of that. (now if only he was cooperative and helpful at HOME).

He's still a REALLY wierd kid. I mean, his odd knows no bounds. His mind works in bizarre ways, makes leaps that are, at the same time, unbelievably advanced and yet still wrong. He doesn't really understand how to interact with people beyond the ways he's been "trained" to interact. Conversations don't "flow" for him, that's clear in his speech. He still doesn't really make eye contact and he would still rather play alone than with other kids.

When I look at just how FAR he's come though, so far that the last shrink suspected he might be well on his way to outgrowing his autism, I feel great. That is, of course, shattered by nosy adults who assume that he's wierd because of something I'm doing wrong. We still hear about how damaging sugar and television are (incidentally, he's gotten a lot better since I eased the fuck up on both of those things...we still have to be careful about "overdoses" but a bit of each doesn't seem to do him any harm at all). I still hear that he's not very social because of having been homeschooled, no matter how often I tell people that he had opportunities to play with other kids EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK for the first 5 years of his life and that he only got less socially phobic when I cut that down to 3-4 times a week.

People refuse to believe that the "expert advice" isn't worth thousands, so they keep referring him to shrinks who tell me to do exactly what I've always done and then bill the province (or my MIL) thousands of dollars for the advice I got out of a book on child development in grade 9.

Incidentally, the jury is still out. We know that Basil is either wierd a) because he's overparented or b) because his needs are neglected. Thanks "experts", we'll keep that in mind while we keep doing what is OBVIOUSLY working.

All Hallow's eve
Day of the Dead
Samhain

The wheel of the year has turned and perished. The sun falters now, fades fast, hibernating to gather energy for its rebirth.

Fresh produce makes way for comfort foods. Winter vegetables, dried foods, breads and cheeses are traditional on this day. Set aside a portion for the dead, your ancestors. Honour them for they are your substance. Their bodies nourish the earth which provides your sustenance today, their souls nurtured the souls of those who nurtured you. You are because of the dead before you. Never forget that.

Be at peace with the circular nature of time. Birth and death are equally parts of this existance and you should fear neither. All things change, but as the trees drop their leaves and the earth becomes hard and unforgiving, look forward and know that this is but another transition. In the dark days ahead, remember that spring will come and that all things are cyclical. Embrace the cold and remain aware of the spectre of death while living despite it.

Namaste
Blessed Be
Shalom
Peace

Whatever word it is you will use, I turn it back to you today.

A second blog?
What an intriguing idea...
What would I write in this one, though?

What stories do people even want to hear?